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Thursday, July 4, 2013

Throwback Thursday: NBA Rappers

Today
July 4th happens to be the release date for the much
anticipated “Magna Carta holy grail” album from rapper/mogul
Jay-Z. He has 13 career#1 albums and love him or hate him he is a
legend in the world of hip-hop. They say all rappers want to be
basketball players and all basketball players want to be rappers well
thats actually happened with guys like Ron Artest, Shaquille O'Neal,
Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant and Chris Webber all trying their hand at
rapping. NBA players who rap will be the subject of today’s
Throwback Thursday.

Some
NBA players have a skill for rhyming and others should be grateful
they can play ball at a high level. The most notable NBA MC is former
Lakers big man Shaquille O'neal who has one platinum and one gold
album. He has done songs with hip hop legends Ice Cube, Wu-Tang Clan
and also Kobe Bryant. He is no legend but Shaq certainly has had his
moments like in the song off his platinum album “Shaq Diesel” in
a song titled “I'm Outstanding”. O'neal has done literally
everything you could do for a basketball player business wise but
this seemed like he genuinely loved rapping. Check the video below to
see young Shaq doing his thing.

Ron
Artest Like Shaq represents some of the good for NBA Rappers but to a
lesser extent. He never had any platinum albums or gold albums or any
critically acclaimed albums but he did have some success with his
song “Champion” that he released after the Lakers captured the
title in 2010. The song made its way on to NBA 2K11 and became the
most popular song in the game instantly earning millions of views on
Youtube.

Guys
like Kevin Durant just do it for fun. He doesn’t have any albums
but you can tell that his flow mirrors his playing style on the court
which is silky smooth. Although he won't impress you lyrically he
isn't as bad as say Kobe Bryant in his song with Tyra Banks. In his song
“Worried about Tomorrow” he shows you that he is a legit rapper,
Ive even heard people say “KD has bars”.

One
guy who I personally liked out of the NBA Rappers was Sacramento
Kings great Chris Webber who was featured on west coach legend
Kurupt's song “Gangsta Gangsta” its not that bad and he looks and
sounds like he knows what he is doing. Had Webber put his time into
rhyming like he did as a baller who know he would have turned out.

Allen
Iverson might be the only guy on this list who looks like both a
rapper and a basketball player at the same time but he had his
moments on tracks like “40 bars”. Iverson's music can pretty much
be summed on how he did things on and off the court which was his way.

Kobe
Braynt has a pretty funny rap career he is most famous for his self
titled song “K.O.B.E” featuring Tyra Banks which pretty much is
the biggest joke when it comes to NBA rappers. What most people don't
realize though is that he is actually a dope rapper on skill alone
he might be the best rapper on the list. He a did song with Shaq titled
“3x dope” he goes raps under the moniker “K-raw”. In the song he
had the 1st verse and to be quite honest it didn't even
sound like Kobe Bryant he sounded like an underground rapper that
knew what he was doing. So in terms of Kobe Bryant's rap career, he
is trolling all of you fools. Check the videos below to see what I’m
speaking about.

The
Bad

The
Good

So
NBA players are rappers too but some of them need to stick to their
day job because they aren't going to touch Jay-Z.......Unless Kobe
comes out of retirement.